"How do we deal with these two?" Barrett asked.
"If she weren't stuck in that formless slime state right now, I'd fuck her real good," Franco said, pointing at the writhing clump that was Solution, his eyes gleaming with wicked hunger.
Inside the transparent octagonal magic cage, Solution morphed a human face and snarled at Franco. "Ptooey! You disgusting human!"
She even spat, but the saliva splattered against the cage wall and never reached his face. "None of you are getting away! How dare you oppose Lord Ainz! Death is too good for you!"
"Is that so?" Franco pressed his wand against Sebas's head, his smile dripping with smug satisfaction. "Little lady, read the room. I order you to change back into your maid form and serve me. Otherwise this unconscious old geezer here is never waking up."
"You… you shameless bastard!" Solution choked back her rage, her whole body churning and rolling like jelly. She swallowed the rest of her words and went quiet.
"Come on, bro, we're supposed to be the good guys. Don't do something this filthy, alright?" Barrett patted Franco's shoulder. For the first time, he realized EeDechi had been right to demand high Justice Value before letting anyone join the adventure party.
Barrett crouched down, rolled over the blood-drenched Sebas, and started patting him down, hunting for anything valuable.
After shifting into a draconic humanoid, Sebas's black tailcoat and white dress shirt had been torn to shreds, leaving him completely naked—though he was still wearing a pair of green underwear. Once Barrett confirmed there were no pockets, he slid his hand straight inside Sebas's underwear and groped around roughly.
"Bro, I'm in it for the pussy and you're in it for the loot—what's the difference between us?" Franco said, eyes fixed on Barrett's hand rummaging around inside Sebas's underwear. "So… is the dragonman's cock… big?"
"Not as big as mine," Barrett answered after a quick think.
"Everyone!" EeDechi clapped her hands sharply. "Can we drop this pointless conversations? We still have a road to travel."
Barrett came up empty on Sebas. The dragonman wasn't wearing a spatial ring, either. A level-100 powerhouse like him, sitting on all the luxurious gear from the Great Tomb of Nazarick, obviously wouldn't keep his valuables somewhere easy to find.
Still, Barrett noticed the single pair of underwear Sebas wore was top-tier. The fabric felt like silk but even softer and smoother, flowing like water between his fingers.
He drew a dagger and hacked at the underwear. The blade went dull and still couldn't cut even a tiny hole. The material was as tough as dragon sinew, yet stronger than steel.
"Cough, cough." Barrett cleared his throat. The veteran adventurer grabbed the waistband at both corners, yanked hard, and stripped the underwear clean off Sebas before tucking it into his spatial ring. Not wanting the sight of those bare buttocks to ruin the view, he pulled out a strip of linen and draped it over Sebas's lower half.
Solution formed half a face, staring at him with a complicated look in her eyes. She clearly wanted to rip into Barrett for his disgusting stunt, but the memory of Franco's filthy grin kept her mouth shut.
"Meow~ Meow~ Meow~" Cheeko suddenly started meowing from the side.
"What's wrong?" Barrett asked, looking at Cheeko in surprise. The cat was frantically pawing at an overturned table nearby. Something was trapped underneath it, and a bright red right-angled corner was sticking out.
He walked over, lifted the table, and pulled the object free. It was a blood-red steel plate engraved with the image of a Meat Cleaver.
The edges of the plate were decorated with ancient, rustic patterns, and the surface had been coated in a dye the color of fresh blood. When he picked it up, it almost looked like actual blood was flowing across it.
The face of the plate was covered in deep, crisscrossing knife scars, as if some blade had hacked into it again and again.
Barrett caught a thick wave of blood stench mixed with surging magical power. He knew at once this was an extremely dangerous magical item.
He brought it over to EeDechi. "Captain, take a look at this. What the hell is it? Something from the Great Tomb of Nazarick?"
EeDechi had mostly recovered by now and was pulling a black jacket over her torn clothes.
She took the plate, gave it a quick glance, and cast the 5th-tier spell Artifact Appraisal.
[Item Name: Knife and Chopping Board
[Material: Unknown
[Quality: World Item
[Function: Appraisal failed. Item level too high—exceeds appraisal capability.
[Note: World Items can only be used by a new owner after ownership has been transferred. So even if you obtain one, you're merely the holder and still cannot use it. The true owner can sense the location of the World Item.]
"This is a World Item," EeDechi said, looking at Barrett, who was wearing an excited grin. "But unfortunately we can't transfer ownership, so we can't use it."
"Too bad," Barrett sighed. "We couldn't sell it even if we wanted to. An item this high-tier would let Ainz trace it straight back to us."
"Destroy it," EeDechi said calmly.
Solution roared from the ground. "Stop! If you dare destroy Great Tomb of Nazarick property, you'll regret it!"
"Can't have it? Then wreck it! That's exactly the kind of style I like from the captain!" Franco gave a thumbs-up from the side. "It's the same way I handle girls who turn down my confessions."
EeDechi shot him a vicious glare, tossed the Knife and Chopping Board onto the ground, then drew her giant sword, raised it high, and brought it crashing down!
CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!
The blade was blunt, so it took several heavy swings before she finally carved a huge notch into the steel-plate-shaped Knife and Chopping Board.
EeDechi grabbed the "steel plate" with both hands, one on each side, and yanked with all her strength. Just like ripping open a package, she tore the plate clean in two along the fresh gap.
The Knife and Chopping Board was completely destroyed.
Solution watched the whole scene in terrified silence, too scared to utter a single word.
"All done," EeDechi said, casually dropping the two broken pieces to the ground. Wild magical energy erupted from the shattered World Item, blasting the sand across the floor into the air.
"Ugh, what a waste," Barrett sighed again. Watching a fortune slip through his fingers was a bitter feeling.
After all that fighting, the only loot they had was one pair of underwear. For elite adventurers, this was a total failure. Barrett scanned the area and spotted a black handbag lying under one of the tables.
He remembered that half a second before Solution was sealed away, she had flung the handbag under the nearby table, clearly trying to hide it.
Barrett bent down and fished the handbag out. It was made of stiff black-painted cowhide, reinforced with metal studs on every side. The back was embossed with dark-gold four-leaf clover patterns, and a silver skull-shaped lock sat dead center.
Franco tapped the silver lock with his wand and cast the 5th-tier Unlock spell "Open Portal." Nothing happened. The entire bag was sealed shut by some unknown, insanely powerful magic. Even Franco would need the exact counter-spell to open it without wrecking the bag.
EeDechi leaned in for a closer look. Whatever Sebas and Solution had been carrying had to be something big—something that would make this whole trip worth it for the three adventurers.
"Heh. Pathetic little humans actually think they can open a treasure from the Great Tomb of Nazarick," Solution sneered as she watched Franco's useless efforts. "The magic sealed inside is far beyond anything your tiny brains can imagine…"
EeDechi reached out, grabbed the skull-shaped silver lock, gave it a sharp twist and yank. The entire lock cylinder and screws ripped free with a metallic screech.
Click. A faint sound of gears meshing rang out, and the handbag popped open like a tightly shut clam shell.
"…"
Solution instantly went dead silent and shrank her face back into her slime body.
Inside the handbag were stacks of parchment scrolls, corroded metal scroll tubes, ancient handwritten tomes, and several broken pieces of stone tablets covered in intricate, unreadable runes. Every item reeked of age, as if thousands of years had been stuffed into the bag.
"You guys planning to become archaeologists now?" Barrett glanced at Solution. The three of them decided to stow the handbag away for the moment and examine it more closely later.
"Just let her go like that?" Franco pointed at Solution. "Hang on, I'm thinking… maybe there's some kind of magic that can lock formless slime into a permanent human shape."
"Of course we're not just letting her go," EeDechi said, frowning at the number hovering over Solution's head—her Justice Value: -400. She pulled out her golden pen, raised it high, drove it straight through the octagonal magic cage, and stabbed the tip into Solution's writhing body.
Solution screamed in terror. "What are you doing to me?"
"Relax, girl. Don't struggle—I don't want to hurt you." The tip of EeDechi's pen blazed with light. Golden radiance poured through Solution's semi-transparent body, flooding her with Justice Value.
"Hmm, not bad." Seeing the number above Solution's head change to 98, EeDechi nodded in satisfaction. Her pen had held 500 points of Justice Value; after dumping it all into Solution, it had only cost her two points.
"Captain shot all over her face!" Franco said with a smirk. EeDechi spun around and raised her fist like she was about to deck him. Franco snatched the sky-blue cat Cheeko off the ground and used him as a living shield.
"Cast a binding spell on this old man," EeDechi told Franco.
"Yes, ma'am!" Franco gave a sloppy salute. Cat tucked under his left arm, he used his wand like a pen in his right hand and drew a bold, sharp circle around the unconscious Sebas. The moment the magic circle finished, countless golden chains wove into existence and wrapped Sebas up tight.
It had to be said: having a mage in the party made up for a lot of the control issues they ran into during fights.
Suddenly a row of small engraved letters appeared on the pen. EeDechi rubbed her thumb over them, held the pen up to the sunlight, and read the inscription:
[After multiple Justice Value modifications, the item's attributes have grown.
[Current Justice Value total capacity: 700. Increased by 200 points.
[Justice Value generation rate: 4 points per day. Increased by 2 points.
[Note: Justice Value modification cannot be used on oneself.]
The three adventurers and one cat left the unconscious Sebas and the immobilized Solution behind on the floor and walked out of the crumbling tavern.
They had made a hell of a racket. The local sheriff wouldn't be able to handle it, so he would report to the city lord, who would report to the knight order stationed nearby, who would report to the regional lord… and the news would climb the ladder until Re-Estize's top brass finally informed the Great Tomb of Nazarick.
But that would all happen much later. By the time Ainz marched an army here, the party would already be long gone to some faraway place.
...
After a quick disguise, the Last Defender of the Way adventurer party left the city. They trekked across the wilderness and reached the small town of Malorca, where they settled down in an inn for the night.
Once they were sure no one was following or watching them, EeDechi took out the handbag and spread the scrolls, handwritten tomes, and parchment sheets across the floor. The three of them got to work studying the haul.
Most of the items were old, battered pieces Sebas had bought from adventurers, traveling merchants, and elderly mages. They contained all sorts of strange tales and mysterious legends, the majority of them linked to the Eight Greed Kings desert and the dragon race. It looked like the Great Tomb of Nazarick was searching for something too.
Cheeko crouched off to the side, tail curled around his body. It suddenly padded over to a pile of parchment sheets, dug through them with it's paws, and dragged out a notebook with a dark-green cover. The notebook wasn't old or worn—it was brand new and looked completely out of place among all the ancient relics.
EeDechi picked up the notebook and flipped through a few pages. The contents were a handwritten manuscript dictated by Sebas and recorded by Solution.
A few underlined lines immediately caught her eye:
"It's hard to imagine... The power of the Eight Greed Kings surpassed that of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, establishing a vast empire that spanned from the poles to the deep seas of the world. Why did it collapse overnight, leaving behind only a desert flowing with legends?
"The three dragon gods beneath the world's throne are not just absurd myths but real entities that were all slain by the Eight Greed Kings…
"Why are dragons so powerful... What place do they hold in the world's hierarchy of creatures, and who granted them their power...
"The three dragon gods, the Dragon Progenitor, Dragon Emperor, and Dragon Endbringer. The Dragon Progenitor governs creation, the Dragon Emperor sovereignty, and the Dragon Endbringer destruction...
"...Something is amiss. According to the calendar of the Eight Greed Kings' empire, in the year 1339, they launched a great expedition. I've found some inconsistencies that must be explored further..."